Chapter 15 Dove
fifteen
Dove
Much to our surprise, Moyrie informs us that our journey to the void will take no more than one full turn of the suns and moon.
Rivern tries to convince me to take Mage so I’m not on my feet the whole time, but one horse is not enough to carry all of us, and I will not be singled out.
I can trudge through the barren sand just as well as the others.
Rivern’s main concern is the heat at the highest point of the day, but we still have our boots to protect our feet from the sizzle of the sand.
As for the suns, we will just have to make do.
Moyrie informs me that her shimmering scales thrive on the warmth of the suns’ rays.
She is confused when I tell her that my skin may burn if in the heat for too long.
To diffuse any fight from Gideon and Rivern—who doesn’t like the idea of so much of my body being exposed to the sun—Moyrie provides me with her white-threaded cloak.
It is similar to the one Fury gave me, however, the silver’s is thin and light.
Almost like it isn’t there—perfect for the sand’s untold hot weather.
With our small entourage sorted and my two protectors somewhat satisfied, we make our way across the sand, Rivern’s intimate, Solen, providing aerial coverage of our progression.
Gideon stays at my back and Rivern at my side as we move forward, Moyrie leading the way through the unending sand dunes.
This land is truly unforgiving when both the primary and secondary suns sit high in the sky.
The fine sand reflects a burnt yellow in the harshness of the suns above, giving me a perpetual eye squint.
It’s hard to believe that only a turn’s walk away lies the vast ocean, and beyond that, the forests that lead into the Kingdom of Haven.
Through our trek, Fury is blissfully silent, not providing any unnecessary commentary.
I hope Saff and her egg are doing well, but I don’t want to bridge the gap between me and the God to find out.
The more I sit with my predicament, the more I feel the need to choose between them.
And I’ve already chosen Rivern, haven’t I?
We secured the bond through a coming together of our bodies. I didn’t go that far with Fury or Gideon, even though I wanted to.
We definitely shouldn’t.
I press my fingertips against my temples. Without looking at him, I sense Rivern energetically probing me, watching me, making sure I’m okay. No doubt he feels all the warring emotions moving through my body.
Not only do I feel Rivern, but there’s also a distinct pull at my back, Gideon eyeing me off with every step. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t taken his eyes off of me this whole time. His piercing irises are a reminder of our growing feelings for each other.
Maybe we can be friends? After all is said and done, he will be free to find someone else.
At that notion, a sharp pang moves through my chest, making me trip on an elevated mound of sand. Before I can face-plant, two sets of hands firmly grasp me. Lightning runs through my veins at the contact.
Blowing out a deep breath, I say, “I’m okay.”
Both males don’t let go.
Looking to my side at Rivern, I glare. “Let go. I’m fine.”
A grunt comes from behind me. Rivern returns my glare with a tinge of sympathy. I push him away, and they both release me.
“We’ve been walking for all of the light. The suns are receding, so we are taking a break,” Gideon announces behind me.
I stand straight, gazing at the darkening sky ahead, a blue and purple cast making its way along the horizon. “I don’t want to stop. I want to keep going.”
Moyrie stops and turns, finally aware our small entourage has suddenly halted. A wind whips up the fine sand around us. The particles dance around my cloak, stinging my legs before they fly off.
They are worried about me. I read it through the waves of emotions falling off Rivern. He wants me to rest, to eat. While the bond thrums happily, knowing my bonded mate feels this way, Dove—the fighter, the warrior—wants to keep pushing on. I don’t want to be looked down on.
I can’t be the same weak woman who let herself be manipulated and pushed around. I’m different now. My body and my mind are stronger. My heart beats to a rhythm that bolsters me instead of tearing me down.
I may not be an immortal shifter, a fae prince or a Silver Sands princess—my heritage is basic human—but I can keep up. The need to prove myself to these creatures is almost unbearable, squeezing the arteries of my heart. Argus rears his head, puffing smoke.
Sensing their need to say something, I direct my following words at Moyrie, telling her to lead on. She nods her head and continues, Solen circling around us overhead.
Ignoring the glares from the two males around me, I push onward. A deep, ominous growl comes behind my back.
“We can rest, my love. We all need our strength for this next leg.” The words are a solemn whisper from the contemplative fae prince beside me.
Refusing to look at him, I trudge through the blowing sand, the winds picking up, a slight chill finding my exposed skin.
“You forget I have Fury’s power. I’m fine.
” I grit my teeth, pushing down the grumbling in my stomach, my sore calf muscles and the aching tiredness after the daybreak activities in the serpent pit.
It’s not like I haven’t experienced hunger or pain before.
Pain is an old friend.
The full moon has reached the midway point of the glittering dark sky above, and I still refuse to bend. If they can continue, so can I.
The temperature may have dropped dramatically in this part of the Sands, but I refuse to put a stop to our party.
We have rations of dried food and water to keep us going.
Rivern has passed food and water to me throughout our trek, monitoring my needs through the bond.
He doesn’t anticipate when I need sustenance straight away, still giving me a chance to ask.
The fae prince didn’t bargain on my stubborn side coming out.
You don’t survive in a corrupt kingdom, invisible and alone, without a stubborn streak.
I learnt to bend when needed for my survival.
However, having these bond connections and a brooding wolf shifter at my back makes me want to push back even more against the restraints—the ones I created for my continued survival and the ones this world places on us.
With my mouth now dry, Rivern hands me a waterskin. “Drink,” he murmurs through the bond. I puff out an aggravated breath. “If I didn’t have to keep my wits about me, travelling through these unknown lands, I would have you over my knee right now.”
Rivern’s words halt me in my tracks. I turn towards him. “You wouldn’t dare.” Why his words get a rise out of me, I’m not quite sure, but he has me stopped with my full attention now.
Fire pours through my irises as I find hard, violet eyes roaming my face. I’ve barely looked at him after leaving the Silver Sands people. Each rhythm I lock eyes with Rivern, my skin vibrates with the need to touch him. The feeling is overwhelming, so I’ve avoided his gaze.
Pictures of our night together, entwined in each other’s bodies, sit at the forefront of my mind like the bond is pushing us to touch, to kiss, to fuck.
I take a long drink of the warm water and push the waterskin back into the broad, naked chest of the fae before me. His golden lines shimmer with the briefest graze of my fingertips, my own body awakening in desire.
Unable to stand my own need to run my hands and tongue over his body, I close my eyes.
“If it means you’ll rest, I will do anything.
” His velvet-smooth lips are lingering an inch off my ear, my body alighting in a soft, happy hum.
Rivern’s proximity warms me from the cold air, a wave of ease washing over me, soothing my senses.
While walking, I have been purposefully staying away from his mind, trying to create some type of barrier between us to avoid this.
It almost feels wrong to be connected to Rivern in this way—unnatural. “That’s only because you have never experienced this before. What if this is how we are meant to be connected? What if the way we live now, separated by bodies, is what is unnatural?”
A fissure forms in my mind at his words. What if? What if it’s all a lie? What is your truth, Dove?
His hand comes to cup the side of my jaw. My lips eagerly gravitate towards his palm, kissing the soft skin there. “It feels too big.”
I let the words trickle through, my admission feeling like a scar on our bond, even though I know he feels it too.
I take his other hand. Rivern cups my cheeks, lifting my face to look up at his chiselled features—a damnable beautiful sight that nearly makes my knees buckle in the moonlight.
“Good, because loving you is not enough. What we have is fate-made, a colliding of stars, a building of worlds. We are making magic, Dove. It will always feel too big.”
How can this fae, with his sharp features and long golden hair, make me feel overwhelmed and calm at the same time? Looking into his eyes, I know everything will be okay.
Just as his lips move to brush against mine, a prickle of awareness moves through the tiny hairs at the nap of my neck. The wolf. My beast.
“You may have your moment, but we are stopping,” the growl comes through clenched teeth before Gideon suddenly moves away.
“You are cold,” Rivern states, pushing his body into mine. The sudden change in temperature as the suns drop out of sight won’t stop me.
“I’m fine,” I respond, my teeth almost chattering.
A chuckle moves through his chest. Broad hands travel from my jawline to around my waist. “Stop saying you are fine, love. Do you forget I can feel everything you feel?”
Right, that. I’m cold, hungry, sore, tired and I desperately need to pee. But because the others haven’t stopped, I can’t.
I can’t be the first one. I have to be strong.
“Come.” Rivern’s hand grasps mine, our entwined fingers a direct line to our heartstrings. He pulls me away from the others who have seated themselves halfway up a dune, eating dried food and swapping the waterskin in companionable silence.
“Go.” He pushes me over a smaller dune that shields my lower body. “The others cannot see you. I sense your need,” he smirks. I gather the cloak, my skirt short enough that I don’t need to move it aside.
As I go to squat, I realise Rivern is still watching me, his back towards Moyrie and Gideon.
“Could you turn around?” I huff at him, pushing an escaped tendril of hair out of my face.
“No.” That’s all he says, his eyes set on my own. A wheat-gold eyebrow quirks up. I respond with a quirk of my own. Rivern smiles, his white teeth dazzling in the moonlight. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again. I already made that mistake once. I won’t do it again.”
“Fine, but I’m about to pee here.” I wave my hand around my lower half.
Both his brows raise. “Really?” he teases, making me groan.
“What, is this some kink of yours?” I grumble under my breath, squatting.
“Yes, everything about you is my kind of kink, love.” His words travel through my mind as I release onto the sand, my eyes shooting daggers at him.
Once I’ve finished, I stomp over to the lithe but muscular male, a beacon in the moonlight. “Are you happy now?”
Rivern’s lips are full and inviting. He pulls them wide into a devastating, dimpled smile. “So fucking happy,” he announces, pulling me towards him, lifting my face up to his, taking my lips unexpectedly in his.
He’s not sweet or soft. Rivern moulds our bodies together and plunders his tongue into my mouth, drinking every part of my body in. I’m just as eager as he is. My hands find his braided hair, gripping it tightly.
A heavy moan moves through me. I brush up against the hardness beyond his thin skirt, tempted to push our materials aside and plunder each other’s souls through our bodies joining—a real possibility.
“Fuck.” Rivern pulls away from me. “As desperate as I am to have you here, I’m not sure our company would appreciate the show.”
I duck my head around his arm to see glowing amber eyes on us, tense muscles rippling over dark skin. Moyrie, on the other hand, leans lazily back in the sand, her slitted eyes curiously on us. No doubt eager for a show, if the other night in her kingdom is anything to go on.
We untangle our bodies and head back towards our waiting entourage. My bonded fae pulls me between his legs as he sits on the sand beside a stoic Gideon. I go easily into Rivern’s arms, his strong body wrapping around mine, a steady warmth emanating from his form.
After the waterskin and dried pieces of meat are passed around, I find my eyes starting to droop, our companionable silence a balm to my weary heart. Moyrie tells me we can resume our trek towards the mers as the suns’ peak. I relay the information to my protectors. They seem mollified by the news.
With my eyes closing against the warm, smooth chest at my cheek, I let my them shut, my body moving back, still encased in my bonded’s arms.
“I will take first watch,” a gruff voice says over me while I drift off.
The dream starts innocently. Fury is there in all his glory, dark wings stretched out over a pale grey body, dark eyes stuck on me. He lounges in a wide, black, wing-backed chair, a book resting over his straining black leather pants, in his tower prison.
With our eyes locked, we keep our silence, a heady feeling running under my skin, pushing me towards him. I try to fight it, yet my feet take on a mind of their own, and I find myself standing next to the God in his chair.
“What do you want?” I ask with ire in my voice. Argus rubs against my chest cavity, trying to get at the daemon before me. Traitor.
A sinister chuckle moves through black lips. “I wanted to see you.” He pushes the sides of his book together, a thud travelling between us, my body jumping slightly. “Maybe put your concerns at ease.”
At that, I laugh. “My concerns? You forced me into bonding with you. You aren’t worried about me. You want off this island.” I rub at the dragon in my chest, trying to burrow through to his new owner. Or is that just the bond? Godsdammit, I don’t know anymore.
Fury stands, his feathered wings stretching out along the stained glass windows behind. “There was a rhythm when I would comfort you.”
Even with Argus purring at my cavity to be let free, I feel that familiar coal simmer at this daemon’s presence. I’ve known his face, the harsh shape of his jaw and slightly fuller bottom lip that looks sooo biteable—
Argh, stop that.
I think it’s partly why I feel this uncontrollable anger towards him. He was there. Fury saw it all happen. He was a comfort once. Now, I know he is real. I wish he had done more to protect me.
Fury made me believe he was just a figment of my fucked up imagination. He’s a God! Surely he could’ve done more.
Maybe I want too much from him.